The Vltava River’s Heart “is still beating” even below the Lipno Dam water level, as the survey conducted by the Faculty of Civil Engineering CTU in Prague has discovered

When the Lipno Dam was filled in 1958, the “Vltava River’s Heart”, as the specific meander of the Vltava riverbed near the settlement of Pihlov near Horní Planá was called, disappeared below its water level as well. This year’s research, conducted by the experts from the Department of Geomatics of the Faculty of Civil Engineering CTU in Prague, with the use of sonars and other technology, has discovered that the shape of the riverbed resembling a heart is still well preserved even 63 years after the locality was flooded. The survey was conducted as part of the project dedicated to the original Vltava River watercourse.

The “Vltava River – Changes in the Historical Landscape due to Floods, Dam Construction and Changes in the Landscape Use with Links to Cultural and Social Activities in the Vicinity of the River” project has been running since 2018 (and will continue to 2022), and the team, led by prof. Jiří Cajthaml from the Department of Geomatics of the Faculty of Civil Engineering CTU in Prague, is comprised of not only his Department’s staff members, but also his Faculty colleagues from the Department of Hydraulic Engineering and specialists from the Faculty of Science, Charles University.

The team’s work should result not only in an exclusive monograph and an exhibition presenting, in addition to interesting data, three large 3D physical models of the Orlík, Slapy and Lipno Dams, but the public can also look forward to the creation of a web portal that will make a wide range of archival materials accessible as an attraction for tourists, history lovers and researchers alike. The potential of virtual reality should also appear there.

All of this will be presented to the general public in the course of the year 2022.

The “Vltava River – Changes in the Historical Landscape due to Floods, Dam Construction and Changes in the Landscape Use with Links to Cultural and Social Activities in the Vicinity of the River” project No.: DG18P02OVV037 is being solved within the NAKI II programme of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and is set within the time frame 2018 – 2022.